


what is infinite

by ignitesthestars



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 05:11:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4335125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignitesthestars/pseuds/ignitesthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post <i>Ruin and Rising</i>, the Darkling ends up on a tree stump outside Keramzin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what is infinite

There is a large part of Alina that is not surprised to see him, seated thoughtfully on the stump of the oak tree.

“Masha,” she says slowly, evenly, not taking her eyes off him. “Go back inside please.”

The little girl looks up at her with a face full of trust, and nods. Alina waits for the pitter-patter of  feet to fade away before she starts walking.

“I stabbed you,” she points out, once she’s close enough for him to hear without shouting.

“You did,” he says, not looking at her. His elbow is placed just so on his knee, hand resting on his chin. The picture of ease. “You stabbed him, as well.”

Alina thinks of blood, of the stains on her hands that no soap or water or cloth will ever scrub away. “I don’t regret either.” She just wakes up with a scream on her lips every now and then because of both.

He doesn’t laugh, but she catches a soft exhale of air from him, a twitch to his mouth that might be called a smile. “If I had known this was what you wanted, Alina, this powerless and weak existence, I would have left you in Kribirsk.”

She snorts, thinks about the knife at her belt, wonders if history repeats itself. “No you wouldn’t. You would have tied me closer to you. You would have isolated me. You would have made yourself my everything.”

“ _We_  would have had everything.” He doesn’t deny it. “And you would still be a Grisha.”

“And the world would be dead.” She crouches then, kneels on the ground before him. His cheeks are cold when she takes his face in her hands. So are his fingers, gripping her wrists like two bracelets. Like cuffs. “I would rather be nothing to you, like this, running an orphanage with Mal and no power, than to have everything with you and be nothing to myself.”

“Alina.” Her names comes out on a sigh. Cool lips press themselves to her forehead. “You have never been nothing to me.”

She straightens then, carefully disengaging his hands from her wrists. The skin continues to burn with ice, or at least it feels that way. “Pick your dramatic statements better next time then.”

There’s the chuckle, the faint laugh that seems somehow like a blessing and a curse at the same time. “Do you think there will be a next time?”

“There will be if you don’t get off my land.”

“And set me loose on the rest of the world? How irresponsible for a saint.”

“I’m no longer a saint,” she tells him. “And if you were still the Darkling, you wouldn’t be here.”


End file.
